Reflections and observations on the expatriate experience from an American scientist living and working in the Netherlands.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Pitching through the week

The pitch went well: I stepped away from the podium, stood straight, and assured investors that we were experienced, ambitious, and would execute the plan with their money. I did my best ‘Gates: We want your investment and participation. I stood and shook hands at our table all day. It felt good, and, at the end of the day, we had several expressions of interest.

The group next to our table was an emerging wind-energy company: 19k$ backyard wind turbines. They had a cool model, a nice backdrop, and ran their slide presentation through a photo-displayer: it made a nice introduction. I can see we need to kick our marketing up a notch.

Afterward, my partner got a note: “After speaking with you and your colleague David at the stand I met him in the car park as he seemed to be heading on a body clock challenge to Europe, Chicago and Seattle. Interesting life but a tough one. “ <sigh> I feel like someone’s going to stage an intervention one of these days.

I cached myself near Gatwick and was on-time the next morning for the flight to the US. As we left, a half-dozen fully flack-jacketed and helmeted special security people armed with submachine guns descended on the boarding area. Three blocked the exits, the rest searched through the crowd with dogs. Then they disappeared; everyone debated whether we felt more or less secure after the attention.

I arrived in Chicago moments ahead of a raging thunderstorm. Although the clouds didn’t seem threatening as we came in over the lake, there was a curtain of black rain at the edge of the runway as we taxi’d to the gate. The storm knocked out power and prevented the plane from being unloaded: it was three hours before the bags finally arrived.

The joys of travel. But we did take time today to head to the Lake between meetings for a quick sail along the glorious Chicago waterfront. After three days of pushing, rushing, and doubting, three hours of wind and water were wonderful.